Studying abroad to revisit the past

Jim Farrell, a field medic during the Vietnam War, held the head of Lt. John Fuqua, an MTSU alum as Fuqua drew his final breath on Jan. 31, 1966. Farrell was the last person to see the young officer alive, and though it was 48 years ago, he can still remember the pain of that day.

“It was pitch dark, he started. “The only thing I could see was helicopter lights, fire from the enemy and flares … He got hit right in the back of his neck. He was still alive when I crawled up to him, and I said, ‘Sir you’re going to be OK.’ He couldn’t say any words, he just kind of mumbled. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. I put my right arm under his head to try to plug the wound, and he just died.”

That night, both Fuqua and Farrell were positioned just outside the small village of Bong Son in South Vietnam, which was surrounded by huge rice fields littered with craters due to numerous North Vietnamese Army (NVA) mortar attacks.

Today, the village is quite peaceful and mending itself after years of war.

In March Derek Frisby a professor in the Global Studies department led a group of six students to Vietnam to locate the positions where Fuqua and other MTSU students had fallen. In addition the students studied the affect the war continues to have on modern Vietnamese society. Ed “Tex” Stiteler, founder of Vietnam Battlefield Tours, guided the tours. He served in the Marines during the war, and today, he leads tours across the country for veterans to revisit Vietnam. There were three veterans who went with the group of students.

“The war seemed so much closer than ever before,” David Collyer, a student master’s liberal arts student and member of Frisby’s class said. “People we were interacting with likely had parents or family members who suffered first hand during the Vietnam War. The experience really brought forth the human element on both sides of the conflict.”

When the group stepped off the bus in the village of Bong Son, they lingered in the shadow of an old tree that stood in front of a monument dedicated to the communist victory in the area. The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on the students. They were staring at a tall statue dedicated to North Vietnamese soldiers who, in battle, had taken thousands of American lives, including Fuqua.

Fuqua grew up in in Nashville, TN, and attended MTSU. He became brigade commander for the MTSU ROTC where he earned a Bronze Star. Ron Green, a Vietnam Veteran, attended MTSU with Fuqua.

“I remember him presenting me with an accommodation medal at an awards ceremony and actually pinning it on me,” Green said. “He was a good soldier and a great man.”

After college, Fuqua went to Vietnam where he became an officer in the 17th Cavalry.

The Army’s After Action Reports states, “Lt. John Fuqua was leading his squad forward, and he was hit in the neck by enemy fire as they made contact.”

It was then that Farrell received the call for a medic on the night in late January in 1966. The call turned out to be for a wounded Fuqua.

Farrell explained that the morning before he witnessed Fuqua’s death he answered a different call for a medic. When he reached the calling, there was a young Vietnamese girl in a hole, in labor. Farrell delivered the baby.

“I cut the cord and slapped the baby on the rear-end, and it was a little girl,” Farrell said joyfully in a telephone conversation from his home.

According to the former medic, the place where he delivered the baby was less than two miles from the location where Fuqua died.

“When I delivered the baby, she was in my arms, and then eight hours later John was in my arms too,” Farrell said.

The little girl that Farrell birthed that day is now 48 years old, and Lt. Fuqua has been gone for 48 years, but his memory still lives on in the spirit of MTSU and the ones who loved him.

Though Farrell has no idea as to who or what the girl is today, he said that she frequently crosses his mind.

Fuqua is one of nine MTSU alumni to have given their lives in the Vietnam War. The objective of visiting the sites of the fallen soldiers was to commemorate the alumni. Fuqua was the first soldier to locate in Frisby’s journey.

“These MTSU alumni were soldiers, but also students,” Collyer said. “They walked the same hallways and sat in the same classrooms that we occupy today. It is a sad event to visit the locations they fell, but it is also rewarding knowing that their lives will not be forgotten.”